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PC Mag: "Galaxy S8 May Be the Fastest Phone on Every Network" featuring Mosaik's spectrum expertise

March 30th, 2017

by Sascha SeganThe Galaxy S8 looks like a powerful smartphone for all four major US carriers. It gets special abilities on T-Mobile, Sprint and AT&T, the carriers told us before the phone's launch today. And Verizon's absence from the list may just be because the carrier is being bashful.

On T-Mobile, the S8 can achieve "gigabit LTE" speeds by combining 3x carrier aggregation, 4x4 MIMO, and 256 QAM, which no other phone yet has done, T-Mobile's VP of engineering Grant Castle said. The first is a technique to bond different airwaves to make a very wide path. The second multiplies antennas for stronger signal, and the third is a more efficient encoding system. The Galaxy S7 had these three technologies, but could only use two at a time, Castle said.

"With all of those tricks turned on, it becomes our first gigabit-capable device," Castle said.

Of course, T-Mobile also needs enough airwaves, or spectrum, to transmit those fast speeds. It takes at least 50MHz of LTE spectrum to do gigabit internet, so given the need to maintain 2G and 3G networks, we asked spectrum experts Mosaik Solutions where T-Mobile has more than 70MHz of spectrum.

The carrier has at least 70MHz in 41 cities, Mosaik said. It has the most spectrum, more than 90Mhz, in Atlanta, Birmingham, Dallas, Detroit, El Paso, Honolulu, Jacksonville, Las Vegas, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Seattle, and Tampa. So that's where you're likely to see fast speeds first.

T-Mobile has more than 80MHz in Boston, Denver, Houston, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, Portland, San Antonio, and several other cities, Mosaik reported, and more than 70 in Chicago, Pittsburgh, Washington, and others.

"We have all the building blocks, now it's just an issue of freeing up the spectrum and completing the buildouts," Castle said.

The S8 is also one of the first phones to support T-Mobile's new Band 66, which gives the carrier more room to combine spectrum. And it's the very first to support LTE-U and potentially LAA, new technologies being used by T-Mobile, Verizon, and AT&T to improve LTE speeds in crowded urban and indoor areas.

Apple iPhones, most notably, do not have LTE-U, 4x4 MIMO, 256 QAM, or Band 66.

Source: PC Mag | Click here to access the full article on the publication's website.